In the Evil Day (34 page)
‘Like that, is it? Just some ballbearings. I’ll call you.’
Forty-five minutes later, Carla was at his door, uneven on the sticks.
‘I can come to you,’ he said and he regretted it. He put fingers through his hair. ‘That was not something I should have said, was it?’
She smiled. ‘I’m not sensitive about being the way I am. Also, I like the exercise. Come and look.’
THE MAN on the phone ended the call and stood up.
‘Mr Palmer,’ he said, ‘didn’t expect you so soon.’
Palmer nodded to him, went to the corner window. Outside, the day was the colour of pack ice, low cloud, a wind tearing at two flags on a rooftop. He looked down at the river, slick and grey as wet seal fur. A feeble sun came out for a few seconds and caught the oil streaks.
‘Where’s Charlie?’
‘Just stepped out. Get something to eat.’
‘Call him.’
‘Right away, yes.’
Palmer waited, eyes on the river, listened to Martie make the call.
‘Charlie, Mr Palmer’s here.’
He put the phone down. ‘He’ll be here pretty soon.’
Palmer turned, looked at Martie. Martie returned his gaze for seconds, then he looked down, touched the collar of his blue shirt.
‘Not the best run of operations this, would you agree, Martie?’
‘No, sir. Ah, yes, sir. Not the best, no, we’ve had some…’ ‘Don’t say bad luck, Martie.’
‘No, sir.’
‘These contractors.’
‘Agincourt Solutions. Carrick knows the boss. Ex-army, ex-MI6.’ Palmer looked at him for a while. What to do with clowns? ‘That’s like saying ex-Mossad,’ he said. ‘There’s only Mossad and dead. Why’d they shoot this guy?’
Martie stopped running his tongue over his teeth under his upper lip. ‘Well, it’s the back-up man, he’s there if something goes wrong with the handover. He says the guy just got to the top of the escalator, looked at him, dived at him, he fired. Instinct.’
‘Instinct of an arsehole,’ said Palmer.
‘Yes, sir.’
Palmer turned back to the window. In the building next door, on the third floor, he could see a man moving down a long white table. It was a restaurant. The man was putting out the cutlery, the implements flashed like fresh sardines. He had the precision and economy of a casino dealer.
He heard the door close. Martie coughed.
‘Mr Palmer, this’s David Carrick.’
Palmer turned. Carrick was medium-height, pale smooth hair, in a dark suit. He was going to fat but he held himself like a gasoline pump.
‘Any other contractors you’d like to recommend, Mr Carrick?’ said Palmer. ‘Any other old friends?’
He noted Carrick’s swallow, the bob in his short neck above the striped shirt.
Soldiers, dogs, kids. Kick ’em and forgive ’em.
His father’s dictum. That had been his father’s ranking order too. Soldiers first. Dogs before children.
Palmer turned back to the window, to the river, stood rubbing his palms together, hands held vertical. His palms were dry and the sound was of water moving on sand, a tropical sound. Australia. Never mind the Virgins. The Great Barrier Reef. After this, with the boy. Golf, sailing. He hadn’t sailed enough with the boy, they worked well together. You never had to tell him anything twice.
Kick ’em and forgive ’em.
The door.
‘Scott.’
Charlie Price, in a dark-grey suit, grey shirt, no tie. From across the room, Palmer could see the blood in his eyes.
‘I don’t want to run this down the chain of command, Charlie,’ said Palmer. ‘I want you three to hear it from me. This business, it’s maybe a bit more important than I’ve managed to get over to you. And it’s getting more important and more fucked up by the minute. Now it isn’t just this South African and the woman, now it’s…’ Carrick’s mobile trilled. He looked at Palmer, who nodded.
‘Carrick. Yes. Yes. A second, please.’ He went to Martie’s desk and wrote on a pad. ‘Thank you. Well done. Stay on it.’
Carrick pocketed his phone.
‘Progress,’ he said. ‘The woman used a card to buy petrol on the A44. We’re back on track.’
‘SHE DOESN’T live here anymore and I don’t know where she lives,’ said the woman and slammed the door.
Caroline stood in the thin rain and thought about trying again. Then she went back to the car and got the phone book out of the boot. ‘You can never find one when you need one,’ McClatchie once said. ‘I used to keep ’em in the boot. Whole of Britain. You never know.’
There were any number of J. Thomases and a Jess Thomas Architectural Models in Battersea. She tried that on the cellphone.
An answering machine message—a woman with a faint Welsh accent.
Caroline fetched the Yellow Pages. There weren’t many architectural model makers. She rang the first one. A man answered.
‘Hi, this is a really strange thing to ask but I’m trying to get hold of a model maker called Jess who rides a motorbike and…’ ‘Jess Thomas,’ he said. ‘She’s in the book.’
‘Great, thanks, you wouldn’t know anyone who could tell me something about her work, would you?’
‘Her work? Why don’t you ask her to nominate some clients?’
‘I’d really prefer to do it before I approach her.’
‘Well, she’s pretty much in-house for Craig, Zampatti, you could ask them.’
‘I will. Thanks very much.’
It took a long time to get to Battersea and it was wasted. No one answered the bell of Jess Thomas’s place of work and dwelling. There was mail in the box. When she looked up, she saw a man watching her from the other side of the street. Something made her go over.
He was old, ancient, small, lifeless grey hair needing a cut, in a long raincoat, pyjama pants showing above battered brown shoes.
She introduced herself, told the truth.
The man looked at her through glasses smudged and scratched. He dropped his top teeth and moved them sideways. She looked away.
‘I’m looking for Jess Thomas. She lives in the building.’
‘Hasn’t come back since the fire,’ he said. ‘Up on roof. Run away, the boogers.’
‘Who?’
More teeth movements. He looked around, took a hand out of a pocket and waved it vaguely. There were bits of sticking plaster on his hand, dirty strips.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Who ran away?’ Caroline prompted.
‘Before fire brigade come,’ he said. ‘Burned uns. Two of ’em. I seed ’em, put ’em in the van. They come in a van. And a car. Burned.
The two. I seed ’em.’
‘And Jess, the one with the bike?’
‘Bike?’
‘The girl with the bike? Was she at home?’
‘Home?’
‘The girl on the motorbike.’
‘Never in my day. Girls.’
Caroline bent over him. He had a sour dairy smell, like old spilt milk.
‘Was she there, at home. Was the girl there when the fire happened?’
He shook his head with some vigour.
‘Went off before, always hear the motorbike. Bloody racket. Nice girl. Never rode motorbikes, girls, no, never, not my day. On the back, mind you, now that…’
‘Has she come back?’
‘Hey?’
‘The girl?’
‘Nah. Always hear the motorbike, never rode motorbikes in my day, girls…one booger come down the pipe, seen him. Off he goes in the car. Like bloody lightning.’
‘Whose car?’
‘Car?’
‘The one who came down the pipe? Whose car did he go off in?’
He shook his head, as if she’d said something stupid.
‘Well, their bloody car, what else? Come in a van. And a car. Booger come down pipe, he’s off. Bloody lightning. I can tell you. Down there, in that lane. The car.’
She thanked him, gave him a ten-pound note. He looked at her as if she were not quite right in the head.
Someone fleeing? Escaping? Mackie? Had Jess Thomas brought him here and people had tried to kill him again?
She sat in the sluggish traffic, sky leaking, windscreen fogging. She felt weak, tired, scared, a little, perhaps. This is not for me, the inner voice said, this is too serious for me. I’m not responsible for people trying to kill Mackie, villages in Africa, I’m involved by accident, he saw my byline, I owe him nothing. And there’s nothing in this for me. There’s no page one here.
There probably wouldn’t be another page one.
…turning up Brechan’s bumboy, that’s now looking less spectacular.
The woman who rang her. The woman who said she had lived in Birmingham and admired her for uncovering corruption and had a friend who was being harassed, he was really scared, he thought he was in danger, and he needed to talk to someone in the media. A person who could be trusted.
And then being run through the obstacle course. The no-shows, the phone calls, having to sweet-talk Gary’s friend. Finally, finally, after two days, the meeting in the park, in the dark. And, before the handover of the film and the tape, Gary saying, quickly:
On this, there’s just me talkin on this, right? Solo. Only it’s like an interview,
know what I mean? Tony asked me the questions, only he’s not on the tape, that’s
wiped. Okay? So you can put in the questions. Say you did this interview with me.
Anyone asks me, we had an interview, that’s what I’ll say. Cause I don’t have the
time to actually do that. So this is the same, know what I mean?
She had gone to the conference late, you had to be late on a day like that. She had waited, so high, so sure that she had it. She had sat there, the pulse felt in her throat, not really hearing what other people said, it didn’t matter. She knew that she was going to be the star, they were just supporting acts before she came on.
Waiting to be the star. And for once she was. She remembered the silence. And Marcia’s mouth frozen open.
The moment went a long way to balancing other memories. The one of running down a path towards her father, her brother behind her. Her father was coming home. They had been waiting all day. He father held out his arms and she held out hers.
She remembered the feeling of complete delight. For the feeling, there was no adequate word. She ran to him and then her father’s arms went over her head and took her brother, lifted him, tossed him into the air, caught him.
And she ran into her father’s legs, was left clutching her father’s legs, his long, thin, muscular legs.
That had come back to her soon after the wonderful moments, the screwing of Marcia, it had come in the midst of the euphoria, not in any distinct form, just a shiver. That night she woke dry-mouthed with the thought that she had done something terribly stupid when she thought she was being lucky because she was deserving. ‘You earn your luck.’ Her father’s words. Things came to those who deserved them.
But why her? What had she done to deserve Gary? Halligan had said:
A lot less clever of you. In the light of information received.
It was beginning to dawn on her what that meant. Colley had said something strange too:
…just a pretty vehicle, a conduit. Something people ride on. Or something stuff
flows though.
Driving the small car in the electric city, the thought settled on her, dark fingers across a darkening day.
She had been a dupe.
She had been used to bring down Brechan. Someone had the tape and the film. Someone chose her to be the vehicle, the conduit. Not because she was smart. No, because she was dumb. Dumb and eager.
She should have come out with it: said that she never interviewed Gary, only Tony, the youth who said he was Gary’s friend, was acting for him. She should have told Halligan the whole story about the woman whose telephone number suddenly ceased to exist. Along with dark-eyed, quick-talking Tony and his number.
I suppose you’ve heard they found your little Gary. Dead of an overdose. Been
dead for days.
How many days? Was he alive when she got the film and tape from the man in the park who said he was Gary? They had been unable to determine the day of Gary’s death, never mind the time.
She rested her forehead on the steering wheel for a second. She had to go on with this. Mackie. She had to find him before her role in the Brechan story was fully revealed.
‘FALCONTOR. Forty million dollars in two years, 1983–1984. Six million dollars three times, one payment of seven million. All from a bank in the Antilles.’
O’Malley tapped the side of his nose with a long finger. The envelope with Carla’s report lay on the table unopened. ‘More,’ he said, ‘tell me much more.’
They were in the pub off Sierichstrasse, sitting in the corner. It was the post-lunch lull, only four or five other tables in use, young men in suits drinking the last of their wine. O’Malley was wearing a dark-grey suit and a blue shirt and a red tie dotted with tiny black castles.